Remove Explore Section From Google Reader and Other Cool Tweaks

If you’re a Google Reader user, you may have noticed the “Explore” section in the left sidebar of the main Reader screen. Many users find this to be quite annoying, but as of this writing, there is no way to disable it. Google basically loads up a bunch of recommended feeds, which for many of us is not needed because we have already loaded the feeds we want.

Sure, you can click the arrow and “collapse” the section, but it’s still there taking up space on the screen. Fortunately, there’s a Greasemonkey script out there that takes care of this, and other UI issues.

How to Remove The Explore Section From Google Reader

You will need to install the Greasemonkey Firefox addon if you don’t already have it. Greasemonkey allows you to customize the way a web page displays or behaves, by using small bits of JavaScript. If you aren’t a Firefox user, I’m not sure what alternatives there are but if you know, share your knowledge in the comments.

Once you have this installed, head over to the Google Reader UI Fixer script page, and click the Install button at the top right.

That’s it! If you’re logged into Reader, log out and back in again. You will notice the changes. The script page has a list of all the changes it makes along with before and after screenshots.

Still Want More Tweaks?

Since it’s a Greasemonkey script, you’re able to make additional tweaks yourself if you’d like. For example, I didn’t really need the “Home” link in the sidebar because I never go to that page. I just show the feeds in list view all the time, and have no need for a home page. So here’s how I added that to the script:

From the Firefox Tools menu, click “Add-ons.” When the Add-ons Manager displays, click the “User Scripts” link from the left side of the screen. You will see something that looks like this:

Click the Preferences button, and then in the window that shows up, click “Edit this user script.” It will probably ask you to associate an editor with the file so you can edit it. I’m using a Mac, so what I did was search the Applications for TextMate, which is the editor I use, and I selected that.

Then the script should open up in the editor. Now, you would need Firebug to find the applicable CSS selector. In the case of the home link, it’s “#home-section”.

So you would add this to the file:

// Hide Home Navlink
GM_addStyle("#home-section { display: none; }");

Save the file, and you’re done. You can apply the same rules for other elements on the page.

Have fun!

Tagged as: google reader, greasemonkey